Neil Lucock

neil@nlucock.freeserve.co.uk

Krishna Tateneni

tateneni@pluto.njcc.com

Anne-Marie Mahfouf

annemarie.mahfouf@free.fr

In this chapter, &kpresenter; is introduced using a simple tutorial. We shall walk through the most basic steps that are involved in creating a presentation, and adding some basic effects. When you start &kpresenter;, the usual &koffice; startup dialog appears. The &koffice; startup dialog The &koffice; startup dialog Select Screen on the left then select the template labeled Title (highlighted in blue in the screenshot above) by clicking on it. You can check Always use this template to make it the default template. Now click Use This Template. This brings up the slide editor window, where you can view and edit the slides (and objects contained in them) in your document. At the moment, we just have one slide, with one object on it, which is a text box. The slide editor The slide editor Double-click the text box. The cursor changes to a vertical bar to show that you can now type some text and the background of the edited area becomes grey. The text insertion cursor The text insertion cursor Go ahead, type some text! Adding text Adding text Click away from the text to de-select the text box when you are done typing. Let's now add a new slide to our document. To do so, click the Insert menu, and then click on Slide.... Inserting a slide from the menu Inserting a slide from the menu This brings up the Insert Slide dialog. The Insert Slide dialog The Insert Slide dialog Select Use different template and click OK to add a new page after page 1. The Create Document dialog comes up so that we can decide what the new slide should look like. This time, select Screen on the left and double click on the One Column template (highlighted in blue.) Choosing a template for the new page Choosing a template for the new page The new slide now appears in the editing window. To change between pages of your presentation, you can select slides in the pane to the left (highlighted in blue for this screenshot). The slides list The slides list The newly inserted slide has two text boxes. There is one for a title, and another to contain a bulleted list of items. The new slide The new slide Double-click and type a title. Then double-click on the second text box with the bullet. Type some text and end the paragraph by pressing the Enter or Return key. As you type new paragraphs, bullets automatically appear in front of them. Adding text to the second slide Adding text to the second slide You can de-select the text box by clicking away from it. Let's go back to the first slide now. Use the list of slides on the left of your screen. In this section, we'll liven our presentation up a bit by adding a nice logo to the title page. To do so, the first step is to click on the Insert menu item, and then on Picture.... Using the menu to add an image Using the menu to add an image This brings up a file selection dialog. To learn about this or other standard &kde; dialog boxes in detail, please consult the &kde; documentation. You can browse by clicking on folder icons or by using the browser style buttons on the toolbar (highlighted in red.) Clicking the up arrow takes you up one folder level. Find the file named koffice-logo.png, which may be in a different folder than the one shown in the screenshot below. You can also choose any other graphic file if you like! Select the file, and click OK. Choosing a picture to add Choosing a picture to add Click with the &LMB; where you want to place the loge in it's original size or draw a rectangle with the left mouse cursor to specify the position and size for the logo. There are selection handles (little squares) visible around the border of the graphic. The newly added image The newly added image Place the mouse cursor anywhere in the middle of the logo, and drag it to the middle of the title page. Then use the selection handles to resize it correctly. Dragging and resizing the image Dragging and resizing the image That's it. Now you have a picture on the title page! Let's insert another &koffice; object under the picture, for example a chart. Every &koffice; supported document can be embedded in a &kpresenter; slide. Let's choose a chart from &kchart;. To do so, the first step is to click on the Insert menu item, and then on Object. The Insert Object menu The Insert Object menu A list of the &koffice; available components appears as submenu. Select Chart and then outline with your mouse the area you want to put your chart in on the &kpresenter; slide. Select the area where to put the chart Select the area where to put the chart Once you release the mouse button, a blank chart is added on the slide. Whenever you work in the chart, the toolbars and menubar in &kpresenter; main window are replaced by those from &kchart;. &kchart; menus and toolbars embedded &kchart; menus and toolbars embedded While you are in the chart, clicking with the &RMB; will bring the &kchart; settings menu which allows you to modify the parameters of the chart. Please see the &kchart; user manual to get more information on how to use &kchart;. Click anywhere with the &LMB; outside the chart to go back to &kpresenter; slide. A single click on the chart will allow you to drag it to change its location and also to drag the borders to make it bigger as with any other &kpresenter; object. Double click on the chart to get into &kchart; mode and modify any of the chart property. Let's continue enhancing our title page by adding a shadow behind the title. Right click anywhere on the title text. This achieves two things: the text box containing the title is selected, and a menu pops up. Select the Shadow Objects... option in the popup menu. The context menu The context menu The Shadow dialog pops up. The distance between the shadow and the text is currently 0 so the shadow cannot be seen (this part of the dialog box is highlighted in red.) The Shadow dialog The Shadow dialog Increase the distance value to 3. The effect of changing the distance can be seen in the preview window. Now click OK. Adding a shadow to the title Adding a shadow to the title Now the title has a shadow! The new shadowed title The new shadowed title Let's finish by changing the color of the title text from black to blue. To do so, select the title text by double-clicking the text box and select the text. Open the Select Color dialog by clicking on the dark blue A icon on the right side of the Text toolbar (this icon has a Color... tooltip) or choose the Text menu and then click on Color... and change the color to blue. The color palette The color palette Click OK in the Select Color dialog. Changing the color of the selected text to blue changes its appearance. The exact color that highlighted text turns depends on your system color scheme. Highlighted text Highlighted text Now click away from the text to de-select it. The finished title The finished title Now that there are two slides, why not try a slide show! To start the slide show, press the play button (the blue double arrow) on the Slide Show toolbar. The first slide should appear on your screen. The first slide The first slide To advance from the first slide to the next, just click anywhere on the screen, or use the Page Down key. The second slide The second slide To exit the slide show, right click, and then select the End option from the popup menu.